Dixon edges Richlands for fifth place

White Oak's Lyric Levester goes up for two of her 22 points - she also had 16 rebounds - during the Vikings' 46-33 win over Southwest on Friday night for third place in the Dixon Girls Christmas Classic.

Rick Scoppe/The Daily News

By Rick Scoppe-Sports Editor/The Daily News

Published: Saturday, December 29, 2012 at 10:00 AM.

DIXON — White Oak used its power inside and a strong finish Friday to take home third place in the Dixon Girls Christmas Classic.

Seniors Lyric Levester and Tineisha Smith each had double-doubles, and the Vikings outscored Southwest 11-2 in the fourth quarter to come away with a 46-33 victory.

“Definitely pleased,” WOHS coach Carolyn Ashdown said. “We definitely have gotten better at some things. We shot better from the foul line (18 of 25) than we probably have all season. It’s always good to make sure we’re continuing to play games and be competitive over this (holiday) time.”

Levester finished with 22 points and 16 rebounds while Smith had a dozen points and an equal number of rebounds to lead the Vikings, who are now 9-3. Southwest, which fell to 3-9, was led by Naya Burney with 22 points, 20 in the opening half to keep the Stallions close.

Levester and Burney both made the all-tournament team.

White Oak won despite being without one of its starters, Emily McLain, who was attending her brother’s wedding.

“It was a tough game,” Ashdown said. “It was a three-, four-point differential the whole game. They play tough. They play hard.”

DIXON — White Oak used its power inside and a strong finish Friday to take home third place in the Dixon Girls Christmas Classic.

Seniors Lyric Levester and Tineisha Smith each had double-doubles, and the Vikings outscored Southwest 11-2 in the fourth quarter to come away with a 46-33 victory.

“Definitely pleased,” WOHS coach Carolyn Ashdown said. “We definitely have gotten better at some things. We shot better from the foul line (18 of 25) than we probably have all season. It’s always good to make sure we’re continuing to play games and be competitive over this (holiday) time.”

Levester finished with 22 points and 16 rebounds while Smith had a dozen points and an equal number of rebounds to lead the Vikings, who are now 9-3. Southwest, which fell to 3-9, was led by Naya Burney with 22 points, 20 in the opening half to keep the Stallions close.

Levester and Burney both made the all-tournament team.

White Oak won despite being without one of its starters, Emily McLain, who was attending her brother’s wedding.

“It was a tough game,” Ashdown said. “It was a three-, four-point differential the whole game. They play tough. They play hard.”

One key for the Vikings was on the boards, where they had a 39-32 advantage over the smaller Stallions.

“Second half, that was kind of my main speech to them was rebounding,” Ashdown said. “If we were going to be lazy and let them get second chances, then there was a chance we were going to lose the game. I really focused on crashing the boards.”

That will also be a focus for coach Bev Marley as the Stallions head into Coastal Plains 1-A Conference play in January.

“We have to rebound,” she said. “We are not going to win games if we do not start rebounding. That’s a great quote from me because (Levester) could have been fouled out of the game if we simply put our butt on somebody because she does not have good control not to go over the back. But we never created that.

“That’s our fault. That’s not the officials’ fault.”

This one was decided in the final eight minutes.

White Oak led 11-9 after the opening quarter, 25-22 at half and 35-31 going into the final quarter, which started with neither team scoring for nearly the first three minutes. But then the Vikings went on a 9-0 run behind the aggressive Levester, who had 5 points on a follow shot and 3 of 4 foul shots.

That streak, which came with Southwest’s main inside presence Mikhayla Dugan out with five fouls, gave White Oak a 44-31 lead with 1:52 left. Southwest, which missed its first 11 shots of the quarter and committed nine turnovers in the period, got its only bucket of the quarter with 1:41 left by Taylor Marley.

“Our defensive intensity just continued to grow through the fourth quarter,” Ashdown said.

Marley said her fourth quarter’s woes from the floor “pretty much summed up” the loss.

“It’s the best three quarters probably we’ve played the whole season,” she said. “You can see things coming around. It’s just that finish. It seems like when we get close that’s what we’ve got to get past. I was hoping we’d have a little bit more improvement (in the tournament). But I feel like this has helped us.”

Fifth Place

Dixon 36, Richlands 25

Sophomore Corkie Aquafredda helped make sure Dixon went 2-1 in its own Christmas tournament and also avenge recent losses to Richlands, scoring 15 points and pulling down 10 rebounds.

Miranda Davis, who made the all-tournament team, added 12 points, including a pair of 3-pointers.

“The girls just came out on fire defensively, which is what we talked about,” Dixon coach Christel Caliguire said. “Richlands has beat us twice already (this year). They beat us last year twice, and we were all set to be determined we were not going to lose tonight.”

Aquafredda scored 8 points in the final quarter as the Bulldogs (5-8) pulled away after the Wildcats (4-6) rallied from a nine-point deficit to pull within 21-18 after three quarters.

“She’s only a sophomore. So I’m looking forward to what she’s going to do in the next couple years,” Caliguire said. “It’s just building that confidence because she’s got the skill, and just deciding, ‘Hey, I’m going to come play today.’”

The teams combined for only seven points in the opening quarter and Dixon led 18-10 at halftime in a game that saw a combined 60 turnovers — 31 by Richlands, who didn’t have anyone in double figures.

“They’ve got slow down and take better shots, and quit turning the ball over under slight pressure,” Richlands coach Mike Kelly said. “I need someone on my team to step up and be a leader.

“Individually we had a lot of players that just quit playing, and that’s sad to me. It really is. I have higher expectations. But it is what it is. They just outplayed us, outhustled us. They wanted it more than we did.”